Figures from the world of art, Baul singers, Santiniketan residents and tribal people who had had to travel for several hours gathered near Amartya Sen’s ancestral home of Pratichi on Saturday to protest his alleged harassment by Visva-Bharati authorities.

Campus residents said the university had not in recent memory witnessed a public protest featuring so many well-known people or marked by such wide participation.

The university has accused the economist of occupying without authorisation a 13-decimal (0.13-acre) area of land and issued an eviction order that Calcutta High Court has stayed till a pending case is over.

The protest stretched from 10am till 8.15pm on open ground barely 15 metres from Pratichi, and featured speeches, songs, dances and on-the-spot painting on two makeshift daises. It will continue till May 9 or Pachishe Baisakh, the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore.

“I can’t recall such a protest in Santiniketan. It was heartening to see so many people turn up to express their disgust with the varsity authorities for targeting Amartya Sen, our pride,” said Swapan Kumar Ghosh, an author who has been living in Santiniketan for decades.

On the stage were prominent faces from Bengal’s pro-government culture clan, such as painters Shuvaprasanna and Jogen Chowdhury and film director Goutam Ghose.

The protest — believed to have been conceived by chief minister Mamata Banerjee to mount pressure on the varsity authorities — had a large presence of senior Trinamul leaders from Birbhum.

Initially scheduled to last two days, the programme was extended to four days following a prod from Mamata.

The protesters accused Visva-Bharati authorities, especially vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty, of harassing and humiliating Sen.

“Amartya Sen is a product of this land of Rabindranath Tagore. His contributions are acknowledged globally and he is an icon,” Shuvaprasanna said.

“Visva-Bharati authorities are deliberately harassing him. We have come down from Calcutta and assembled here to raise the voice of protest against the varsity’s dirty ploy.”

Shuvaprasanna painted a portrait of Sen while Jogen Chowdhury painted one of Tagore.

Singer Kabir Suman, who had come despite his poor health, sang several Tagore songs in the evening.

Many of the speakers accused Chakrabarty of ruining the culture of Visva-Bharati and harassing teachers, students and Santiniketan residents who had protested his alleged wrongdoings.

“Humiliating Amartya Sen means humiliating Rabindranath Tagore, which is an insult to Santiniketan too. Rabindranath’s ideological position goes against that of the BJP, which is why he (Sen) is being targeted,” Jogen Chowdhury told reporters.

The Visva-Bharati Banchao Committee or Save Visva-Bharati Committee, the organisers of the protest, had put up two stages by the road that connects Santiniketan with its Sriniketan campus.

Many prominent premises — such as the Tagore museum, the poet’s five residences, Upasana temple and the Kala Bhavana campus — are located along this road.

Hundreds thronged the venue.

“We had come from Chandernagore in Hooghly to visit Amartya Sen’s house. We learnt about the protest after coming here,” said Bidisha Ghosh, a homemaker on a weekend visit to Santiniketan with her family.

“He (Sen) is an eminent economist and should not be humiliated over a small stretch of land.”

Also present were some people opposed to the state government and Trinamul — for instance, a group of tribal people from the neighbourhood of the proposed Deocha Pachami coal mine, 65km away.

“We are against any kind of eviction. We came here in solidarity with Amartya Sen, who is famous globally,” said Kali Hansda, a member of a platform against the proposed coal mine.

“We too are fighting against eviction — the state government is trying to dislodge us from our ancestral homes in order to establish a coal mine,” Hansda added.

Visva-Bharati did not release any official statement on the protest but a university official close to Chakrabarty said the presence of local people was “not significant”.

“The programme turned into a political event as Trinamul leaders and their cronies were the main organisers of the show,” he said.